There's little question in the minds of transportation experts that Northwest Indiana is a prime piece of the national shipping puzzle.
A 3,000-acre parcel in LaPorte County targeted for a huge transportation hub is close to nearly every major interstate in Northwest Indiana. Lake Michigan is within a few dozen miles and the land surrounding it is nearly vacant.
"It's rail, road, airport and water ports," said Vince Galbiati, president and CEO of the Northwest Indiana Forum. "That's why Indiana was chosen. We are so geographically advantaged."
But it's also the reason why Kalina Lowenthal's great-great- grandmother purchased 158 acres in the early 1900s. And it's why she passed the land to her children, her children's children, and now, to Kalina and her husband, John. They use the land to grow corn, and they built their house from scratch.
A ladder leads to the top of a shed, where Kalina and John Lowenthal can perch on a bench and take in the peacefulness of their land.
Chris Davey, president of Grubb-Ellis Cressy and Everett, a corporate and investment real estate development company based in Chicago, approached them many times to offer them $1.58 million for the land. Davey wants to bulldoze their home and make room for the railroad tracks he plans to install over their corn fields. Right now, he's offering $10,000 per acre.
If the Lowenthal family doesn't respond soon, however, he may ask the state to use the Indiana eminent domain law to kick them off their property. Governments have the power to force private property owners to sell their land for for public use or for private use where there's public benefit.
In the past, eminent domain has been used to build roads, schools, utility lines, shopping centers and other public areas. Until then, however, the Lowenthal family isn't budging.
"We will not sell," John Lowenthal said. "This is home. This is where we are supposed to be."
Some farmers, however, welcome the opportunity to sell their land for the relatively good price. Becky Grieger owns 125 acres just off U.S. 6, and she said she was excited to sell the property for $1.25 million, and while she said she feels bad for the other farmers, the timing will work out well for her and her husband since they're retiring.
The only problem, however, is that while she already agreed to sell her property, Davey still hasn't given her a clear timetable of when she will need to move.
"It's kind of a guessing game, I guess," she said. "They said they would give us a year to find some place to live after they are through with us. We'd like to know, 'cause you're kind of in limbo, but I guess we'll know when it's time."
Out of the loop Others thought their land would be used for the intermodal, but after initial discussions, they were ignored and left to assume their property wasn't needed anymore.
Before Davey settled on the Union Mills area, he had looked at Kingsbury Industrial Park, a desolate area on Indiana 35 and U.S. 6. Greg Goolsby owns a motocross track inside the park, which he said he's willing to sell. When he bought the land, he was told it would be taken over by the intermodal, and last year, news reports discussed the possibility of the transformation happening soon.
He was following Davey's plans, eagerly awaiting the sale, when talk of the intermodal coming into Kingsbury Industrial Park suddenly evaporated, and Goolsby was left confused.
Even state Rep. Jim Arnold, D-LaPorte, appointed to the Indiana General Assembly's Northwest Indiana Transportation Study Committee, said he wasn't given much information other than knowing that some of the property near Union Mills already had been sold.
"They've been very tight-lipped about what's going on," Arnold said. "I would like to be brought into the loop because there are going to be so many services affected, and there's no way you wouldn't feel the impact."
Good planning in Elwood In order to make LaPorte County a feasible spot for the intermodal center, Davey would have to do a lot of remodeling.
Truck routes would essentially halt regular traffic patterns, so he would need to figure out a way to get from the southern part of the center to the northern part while avoiding the trucking roads, said Mark Yagelski, 3rd District LaPorte County councilman.
Since the trucks and trains would run 24 hours a day, planners would also have to determine how residents and other motorists would be able to navigate around the commotion.
Key to making the intermodal center work would be the necessary addition of overpasses that would allow travelers to get to the main roads quickly, Yagelski said.
He took a trip with other LaPorte-area politicians to an intermodal center in Elwood, Ill., to examine how the facility interacts with the rest of the community.
"I was impressed by the Elwood facility," Yagelski said. "A lot of that land was given by the government as a cleanup type of method. They put a private road in for the trucks to get straight to the major highway."
Negotiations between the intermodal and the town politicians before the Elwood intermodal was developed was a smart move, some said.
"It was very community conscious," said Tim Gropp, executive director of the LaPorte Economic Development Corp., who viewed the Elwood intermodal and was pleased with the way the area handled the transportation hub. "A lot of people's vision is of (Interstate) 294 with the nasty railroads off to the side, but it's a nicer facility."
Gropp said in Elwood, the intermodal center incorporated an existing cemetery, and developers paved every road. They built a fire station and are helping build a bank, a community center and a wastewater facility.
The intermodal will bring noise and traffic to the community, but if the project is negotiated properly, the good should outweigh the bad, Gropp said. Besides the LaPorte intermodal, Hammond and Gary are also working to bring in smaller scale models.
They wouldn't necessarily connect with LaPorte, but they would enhance the productivity of LaPorte's site and bring more cargo to the region. Benefits, drawbacks Henry Lampe, member of the Northwest Indiana Intermodal Task Force and president of the Chicago South Shore & South Bend Railroad, said he couldn't talk about the projects because of a confidentiality agreement signed with Davey, but he said, "the planning process continues. It would cement Northwest Indiana as a transportation hub for the entire country."
The intermodal center is expected to raise the visibility of LaPorte and should add an economic advantage to the area, but farmers said the region will be losing valuable farmland responsible for many of the crops in the Midwest.
Hugh Glasgow owns 550 acres just off Indiana 39 and U.S. 6. On that land, he grows pickles, green beans, soy beans and corn, each of which gets shipped to a different area in the Midwest.
He said he doesn't want to move and would rather make a living from his profitable property than the $5.5 million Davey wants to pay him.
"Why do they want to pave over productive farmland?" he asked as he stood on his ample property. "U.S. farmers do contribute to the economy. We're not a bunch of slugs."